What is the seal of God?

As a Seal. This truth is set before us in several passages. "Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us" (2 Cor. 1: 21, 22). Again, "In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1: 13); and in the same epistle we are exhorted to "grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30). The Holy Spirit given to dwell in believers is Himself the seal; i.e., God thereby marks them out, takes possession of them as His own, and declares them by the Spirit being within them to be His property. If one may use the illustration, just as the broad- arrow declares the thing on which it is marked to belong to the Queen, so the Spirit of God sets us apart, marks us out as belonging to God. But the figure is that of a seal. Now the seal not only indicated ownership by the impress upon it, but it was put also for protection. Hence believers are said to be sealed until the day of redemption. They are secured by the seal until the Lord shall return to receive them unto Himself. And hence only believers are sealed; and they are not sealed until they are the Lord's, until they are brought out of the house of their bondage (as before seen), through the death and resurrection of Christ, until they not only are safe, but are also saved.

Having believed the Gospel of their salvation, the message of the death and resurrection of Christ, the Ephesian believers were claimed by God for Himself, and He put His seal, the Holy Spirit, upon them (Eph. 1:13). A seal is the claim to ownership, and everyone who truly believes in the Lord Jesus, as having died for his sins, and having come out of death, is marked by God as His own possession through His Spirit. The believer is wholly claimed for God, body, soul and spirit; and the body that enters into death will be claimed and changed at the coming of the Lord Jesus.

Since the gospel was to the Jew first, Jews are spoken of as first trusting Christ. In verse 13 the "you" distinguishes Gentiles, who also, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation, have trusted in Christ. Notice the importance of the words "in whom," twice found in this verse. Their trust was not simply in the gospel, but in the person of Christ, of whom the gospel speaks. This trust in Christ is emphasized the second time in reference to their being sealed with the Spirit. "Having believed," they were sealed. It is not a matter of having entered more into the truth of the work of Christ in redemption, but simply of believing in Him personally. The simplest believer therefore shares in the sealing of the Spirit. As the seal, the Spirit of God is the mark of God's ownership upon the believer. Therefore that ownership is absolute and eternal.

Ephesians 1:13 gives us the answer in a very definite way. We read, “In whom [the Lord Jesus] ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.” Here we find after they believed they were sealed. The important point to grasp is what they believed. We are told, “The word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” What is meant by “The gospel of your salvation?” The answer is the good news that enabled them to know in trusting Christ that they were definitely saved. When a man or woman can say as the outcome of believing on Christ and receiving the testimony of His Word, “I am saved,” that person is sealed by God’s Holy Spirit. How many there are through bearing a defective gospel are brought to trust Christ as Saviour but are not clear as to their soul’s salvation.

First, it is the Spirit Himself indwelling who is the seal to the individual believer, and secondly, He is called "the Spirit of Promise," probably, because He is "the promise of the Father, which," saith Christ, "ye have heard of me." (See Luke 24, John 14, John 16, Acts 1.) Thirdly, He is the pledge of the coming inheritance, not a part of it, which would be derogatory to His glory. He is the earnest of that inheritance; not a future outpouring of the Spirit, which is reserved for millennial Jews and Gentiles, when the Church will be reigning in heavenly glory.

Yet the truth remains that there were two different operations of the Holy Ghost. The first is, when a man is brought to a sense of sin. What makes a man abhor himself? He is born of God. He has no happiness at all perhaps, but a real sense of ruin; yet his heart cleaves to God. That man is born of God — truly converted: no comfort as yet perhaps in his soul, but his heart is open to listen further to the word of the truth, the gospel of salvation. He believes it. What then? He is sealed of the Holy Ghost, as a believer, not only in Christ, but in the gospel of our salvation — the work that Christ has done. For I do not think that you can have a soul sealed with the Holy Ghost, unless he enters into the work as well as the person of Christ. This accounts for the fact that there were persons born of the Holy Ghost who never were sealed. For instance, the Old Testament saints were believers in Christ; they all looked for Christ. All were born of God, but not one was sealed with the Holy Ghost. To be born of the Spirit and sealed with the Spirit are very different things, which may or may not be united in the same person. All must be born of the Spirit, but it is never said that all must be sealed with the Spirit in order to enter into the kingdom of God. Wherever the Holy Ghost speaks of the sealing of the Spirit, it proves the clean contrary. Who was the first person said to be sealed with the Spirit? Our blessed Lord Himself. He had it in a way peculiar to Himself. When was He sealed? When redemption was accomplished and He went up to heaven? No; but when He walked upon earth. "Him hath God the Father sealed." It was as Son of man He was sealed, and as Son of man on earth before redemption — without bloodshedding, because He knew no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. He was absolutely sinless: He could have the Holy Ghost abiding on Him entirely apart from blood, because He was the Holy One — the Saviour. He needed no work — no blood — no redemption; but yet He died, and there was blood shed and redemption effected. Why so? That we might be sealed — that we, who had no natural title to be brought nigh, that we, in whom the Holy Ghost could never take up His abode, might have that same Holy Ghost who dwelt in Him abiding in us.

By the fact that he is a believer, assuming always, of course, that he has heard and believed the gospel of the risen Christ. The Ephesian believers were sealed with the Holy Spirit after that they believed, or "having believed" (see Eph. 1:13); This verse gives us definitely the order which is always observed. First, they "heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation"; second, they believed it; third, they were sealed with the Spirit.

With the believer it is the same. Bought with the precious blood of Christ, he now belongs to Him. And because of this, God seals him by giving him the Holy Spirit to dwell within him. We are thus "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1:13).

Three times in the New Testament we read of our being sealed with the Holy Spirit. It is not that the Holy Spirit seals us, but that He is the Seal by which we are marked as belonging to Christ. It is God "who has also sealed us" (2 Cor. 1:22). We are marked as Christ's, not by being branded in the forehead, not by being bidden to wear a peculiar dress, but by having the Holy Spirit to indwell us.

We are also sealed by God. It should be borne in mind that, whether as anointing or sealing, it is the same Spirit, and takes place at the same time, though the character is different. When God seals the believer - and He seals every believer who has the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38, 10:43, 44; Eph. 1:13, etc.) — He marks them out as belonging to Christ (Rom. 8:9), and He secures them until the day of redemption. (Eph. 4:30.) The Spirit as the seal thus points to ownership and security, God in His grace impressing His stamp upon us, and making it at the same time inviolable. The Holy Spirit as dwelling in us is likewise the earnest; that is, He is the pledge and guarantee that we shall be put into possession of all that God has promised, the bestowment of a part which ensures the whole. In Ephesians He is "the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1:14); in this epistle (2 Cor.) He is the earnest rather of our resurrection bodies, of our being "clothed upon with our house which is from heaven … that mortality might be swallowed up of life." (2 Cor. 5:1-5.)